Commission on the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties

Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties (KGParl)
purpose	Basic research on democratic development in Germany
Chair:	Dominik Geppert
Establishment date:	1951
Seat :	Schiffbauerdamm 40 (House of the Federal Press Conference) 10117 Berlin
Website:	KGParl website

The Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties , or Parliamentarism Commission for short (abbreviation: KGParl), is a non-university research institution that is institutionally funded by the German Bundestag . It supports, develops and publishes scientific studies on the history of democracy , parliamentarism and political parties, especially in Germany . The work covers the period from the pre- March to the present. Since 1962, the politically independent commission, founded in 1951, has had the legal form of a registered association . In 2006 the company moved from Bonn to Berlin . Her work, especially the research she has published, is regarded as “ basic research on democratic development in Germany ”.

founding

The research facility was founded in Bonn on November 30, 1951, and preliminary work had already been going on since mid-1948. The impetus for this came primarily from science. The founders included the historian Fritz Fischer , the political scientists Theodor Eschenburg and Wolfgang Abendroth, and Ludwig Bergsträsser , then a member of the German Bundestag . Alfred Herrmann , a former member of the Reichstag for the German Democratic Party (DDP), and Ludwig Bergsträsser began negotiations in the political arena in 1950. Talks with the Federal Ministry of the Interior were successful and the federal budget was secured. Alfred Milatz did the actual founding work with the establishment of a central office in Bonn, which was headed by him as General Secretary. In the early days, the commission included Max Braubach , Theodor Schieder , Theodor Eschenburg, Wolfgang Abendroth and Walter Hagemann .

The work of the commission should contribute to the “ foundation of the newly created parliamentary state and social order ”. The aim was to counteract the critical attitude towards parliamentarianism and political parties in Germany, which had already been pronounced during the Weimar Republic and which had led to the elimination of parliamentary groups and parties in the “Third Reich” . The new commission was methodologically interdisciplinary from the start. It involved historians as well as political scientists, sociologists and scientists from other related disciplines. As a basis for future presentations, important sources should be indexed and edited. In addition, with the support of the Commission, individual presentations on the history of German parties and parliament were to be created.

The reaction of the specialist science to the preparation of the foundation and the foundation was different. While Hans Rothfels and Werner Conze welcomed the establishment, it was rejected by Gerhard Ritter . Critical voices also came from Bavaria , who saw the commission as an expression of a new Bonn scientific centralism and called for the commission to be located in Bavaria. The first writings were written in 1952 and 1953. They dealt with the break with the grand coalition under Hermann Müller (1930) and the emergence of the CDU and the re-establishment of the center after 1945.

Main focus of work since the 1970s

Already in the founding phase, the initiators thought of an overall presentation of the German parties and parliaments as the ultimate goal. As a preliminary step, the commission initially planned a handbook on the subject to define the state of research and provide laypeople with access. The commission soon abandoned this and instead started a broad-based project of individual representations since the 1970s, but this continued under the title Handbook of the History of German Parliamentarism . A minimal consensus on general topics and questions kept the series together. In this sense, parliamentarism was broadly defined and encompassed all political systems in which parliaments and their precursors had taken on a mediating function between government and people. The individual volumes, as volumes structured according to epochs and territories, should not only take into account the results of previous research, but also carry out further source studies. The concept envisaged not only taking into account developments in Prussia and the later Reich, but also those in southern Germany. The volumes should not be edited by the staffed committee itself, but by authors employed by universities or other institutions. Gerhard A. Ritter was in charge of the project .

In addition to the individual volumes, the deliberations of the respective sections of the Historikertage 1972, 1982 and 1994 resulted in three basic anthologies. However, not all of the sixteen volumes originally planned are available yet. The present volumes were almost exclusively perceived positively by the specialist field. Apart from the work of Manfred Botzenhart on parliamentarism in the revolution of 1848, the remaining volumes have highlighted research fields that have hitherto been neglected. These include Herbert Obenaus' work on Prussian parliamentarism in Vormärz, Günther Grünthal's work on the 1850s in the same territory, Horst Möller's study of parliamentarism in Prussia during the Weimar Republic, and Klaus Erich Pollmann's study of the North German Bund and the work of Hartwig Brandt via Württemberg to the establishment of the German Empire . In recent years, further volumes on Bavarian, Baden, Thuringian and West German parliamentarism ( Dirk Götschmann , Hans-Peter Becht , Henning Kästner, Marie-Luise Recker ) and on the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament ( Dieter Düding ) have been published. The volumes have expanded knowledge of the controversial political history of Germany in many areas. Despite all the differentiation, these works relativize the thesis about a German special path . They also stand out from an only negative assessment of parliamentary and democratic opportunities.

The task of the commission is to present the relationship between parliaments, the media and the public in the 19th and 20th centuries. In addition, the transformation of the People's Chamber of the GDR into a freely elected parliament and comparative studies on the development of parliamentarism in Europe are currently in focus.

The results of the commission's work are no longer only presented in book form or digitally. The Parliamentarism Commission also aims to present its activities and its new findings through specialist events. These are aimed at both the interested public and the international specialist public.

Publications

The initial focus of the work on the period from 1848 to 1933 has been expanded over the decades. More than 250 studies have now been published, many of which are considered standard works . The commission divides its publications into different series :

• Sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties
• Sources on the history of the council movement in Germany 1918/19
• Documents and texts
• Contributions to the history of parliamentarism and political parties
• Handbook of the history of German parliamentarism
• Photo documents on the history of parliamentarism and political parties
• Bibliographies on the history of parliamentarism and political parties
• Handbooks on the history of parliamentarism and political parties

Within the sources on the history of parliamentarism and political parties , four series are distinguished:

• First row: From constitutional monarchy to parliamentary republic
• Second row: military and politics
• Third row: The Weimar Republic
• Fourth row: Germany since 1945

Individual works have also appeared outside of the series mentioned and in collaboration with other institutions.

The editors, authors and editors of the relevant works include renowned scientists such as Karl Dietrich Bracher , Werner Conze , Eberhard Kolb , Dieter Langewiesche , Susanne Miller , Rudolf Morsey , Gerhard A. Ritter , Reinhard Rürup , Hans-Peter Schwarz , Michael Stürmer or Hermann Weber .

In many cases, the published works that do not originate from employees of the commission themselves are dissertations , and occasionally also habilitation theses .

Members and management

The commission currently has 19 full and eight corresponding members who work on a voluntary basis. The Potsdam historian Dominik Geppert has been chairman since 2018 . Deputy chairman is Andreas Wirsching , head of the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich .

The secretaries-general of the commission were Alfred Milatz (1952–1980) and Martin Schumacher (1980–2007); Andreas Schulz has been Secretary General since 2007 .

Authors and collaborators

The scientists who worked for the commission and are associated with the commission include Hartwig Brandt , Günther Grünthal , Horst Möller , Marie-Luise Recker and Andreas Wirsching . Members of the commission included Wolfgang Hölscher , Reinhard Schiffers and Udo Wengst ; Andreas Biefang and Volker Stalmann are currently working for the commission.

Three of the authors of works published under the umbrella of the Parliamentarism Commission later made careers in politics, Helga Timm and Peter von Oertzen in the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Gerhard Stoltenberg in the Christian Democratic Union (CDU).

financing

Until 1976, the federal government provided the basic funding for the activities of the commission. The state of North Rhine-Westphalia then took over this financing. In 2003, the immediate expiry of this support threatened to close the research facility. It could be averted because the German Bundestag took over the base financing. The basic funding is supplemented by project-related third - party funds . Third-party funding providers include institutions such as the Volkswagen Foundation and the German Research Foundation . Own funds, including from the sale of publications, are added.

Others

The Commission's logo was designed by Celestino Piatti . It depicts an owl , a motif he often uses.

literature

• Authors, books, reviewers. Annotated bibliography 1953–1998. The publications of the Commission on the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties . Edited by Martin Schumacher in conjunction with Achim Dünnwald and Ralf Gebel, Droste, Düsseldorf 2004, ISBN 3-7700-5216-1 .
• Ewald Grothe : Between History and Law. German constitutional historiography 1900–1970 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2005 (=  Ordnungssysteme , 16), ISBN 3-486-57784-0 ( review ).
• Commission for the History of Parliamentarism (organizer): 50 years of the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties. The speeches at the ceremony on May 13th in the Paul-Löbe-Haus by Prof. Dr. Klaus Hildebrand , Wolfgang Thierse , Prof. Dr. Lothar Gall . Berlin 2002.
• Thomas Kühne : History of Parliamentarism in Germany. Problems, returns and perspectives of an overall picture . In: Geschichte und Gesellschaft Vol. 24, 1998, Issue 2, pp. 323–338.
• Rudolf Morsey : Introduction by the President of the Commission . In: Weimar as experience and argument. Speeches and presentations on the occasion of the celebration of the 25th anniversary of the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties . Bonn 1977, pp. 1-4.
• Rudolf Morsey: Research on parliamentarianism in Germany. The Commission on the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties . In: Bayerischer Landtag (Hrsg.): Colloquium. New ways in researching parliamentarism - EDP in the service of researching parliamentary activity. June 12, 1997 in the Maximilianeum . Munich 1998, pp. 25-32.
• Winfried Schulze : German history after 1945 . Deutscher Taschenbuch-Verlag, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-423-4597-3 .
• Martin Schumacher: Founding and founder of the Commission for the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties . In: Karl Dietrich Bracher u. a. (Ed.): State and parties. Festschrift for Rudolf Morsey on his 65th birthday . Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1992, ISBN 3-428-07422-X , pp. 1029-1054.

Web links

• Website of the Commission on the History of Parliamentarism and Political Parties

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Short article on the changed financing of the commission  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on the website of the German Bundestag.  
2. ↑ Martin Schumacher: Foundation , p. 1030.
3. ↑ On the founding history see also: Ewald Grothe : Between history and law. German constitutional historiography 1900–1970 , Oldenbourg, Munich 2005 (=  Ordnungssysteme , 16), pp. 337–340.
4. ↑ Winfried Schulze: German History , p. 253.
5. ↑ Rudolf Morsey : Introduction , p. 1. See also the state-political intentions that were expressed on November 25, 1950 in the declaration on the task and work of the commission, quoted in Schumacher: Gründungs , p. 1040.
6. ↑ Thomas Kühne: History of Parliamentarism , p. 323.
7. ^ Winfried Schulze: German History , p. 253 f.
8. ↑ Thomas Kühne: History of Parliamentarism , pp. 323–327.
9. ↑ For the current task and the form of the presentation of the results, see the corresponding illustration on the KGParl website.
10. ↑ Complete list of publications Commission for the history of parliamentarism and political parties e. V.
11. Jump up ↑ Rudolf Morsey: Research into parliamentarism , p. 29.
12. ^ Announcement on the website of the Commission from May 5, 2018.
13. ↑ Initially, however, only to a small extent. See Schumacher: Foundation , p. 1049 ff.
14. ↑ See the press release of the commission of August 15, 2003 as well as the article by Volker Ullrich in the weekly newspaper Die Zeit of August 28, 2003: Set to zero  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective . Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. .  
15. ^ Commission press release of May 13, 2002.